Acer is a multinational corporation that has its headquarters in Taiwan. The company manufactures a broad variety of computer goods, such as Chromebooks, Android tablets, displays, and Windows laptops and desktops. It has 7,500 workers located in different countries throughout the globe. It was stated in January that the company’s yearly sales in 2022 will be comparable to $12 billion Canadian dollars.
A hacker who uses the pseudonym “Kernelware” may have compromised the data security of Acer Inc. A significant data breach has been reported at Acer Inc., a large international firm headquartered in Taiwan that produces and distributes hardware and electrical goods. The hacker has claimed credit for the data breach.
According to Kernelware, the claimed security breach took place in the middle of February 2023 and led to the loss of a large quantity of sensitive information, with the total being to 160 gigabytes and consisting of 655 folders and 2869 files.
Kernelware made an offer to sell the data trove to interested parties in a post that was published on a hacker forum that emerged as an alternative to the popular Raidforums, which has since been seized by authorities. He claimed that the data trove contained a wide variety of valuable files and documents. In order to demonstrate that the data was really taken, the hacker also provided a sample of it.
A spokeswoman for Acer said that the business has recently found evidence of illegal access to one of the company’s document servers that repair professionals use. According to Acer’s statement, there is presently no evidence to suggest that any customer data was saved on that server.
According to the article, the materials that are believed to have been taken include secret slides and presentations, technical manuals, Windows Imaging Format files, binaries of different sorts, backend infrastructure data, and product model documentation.
The data that is suspected to have been taken also included Replacement Digital Product Keys, ISO files, files for Windows System Deployment Image, BIOS components, and ROM files. In this particular instance, Acer may be forced to consider the disclosure of some of its intellectual property as well as perhaps confidential corporate papers. Companies invest a significant amount of time and resources into the creation of exclusive methods and processes, as well as knowledge on the technical aspects of their goods. This information may be extremely useful to rivals in the highly competitive world of electronics and technology, and the technical knowledge may be very valuable to malicious actors who desire to design vulnerabilities targeting the goods of the victims.
The hacker, who has a strong reputation on the site where the data was offered for sale, said that the data was obtained around the middle of the month of February.
A data leak has been acknowledged by Acer on many occasions before; this is not the first time. When a gang claimed to have taken more than 60 gigabytes of data from the company’s networks, the tech giant finally came clean in October 2021 and revealed that servers in India and Taiwan had been hacked.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.
